December 20, 2012 AT 11:22 am

Fabienne Serrière: Open Hardware for a Faster Future Today

Open source hardware, open source firmware and open source industrial design has seeped into our reality. Open development of products, art projects, and all physical things occur on a blindingly rapid and ever forking path. From circuits to software to housings, learn about engineering on a different plane of transparency.
In this talk you’ll hear about how the almost accidental open sourcing of one small chip, the Realtek RTL2832U, is causing huge ripples through entire disciplines. Join the ride with the blindingly fast hardware iterations of an open source hardware company, and the often hidden implications for the hardware. Be pulled into the story of strange fringe knitting machine hardware, the Brother KH930, brought back from obsolescence. Learn about weird art projects like the Orchidarium and Massage Couch that might not be so artsy and actually useful after all. Watch strange ideas become actual items in our world, and how all of this is possible primarily with open hardware.